Nah... I don't think it's the meds talking... Maybe the meds have allowed the no fucks left to give part of you to step into the foreground but what you wrote makes perfect sense and is completely reasonable in my almost 63 year old opinion. I am disgusted every time I read the news. I'm appalled at our sanctioning of genocide by continuing to deliver war-making materials to Israel. Just because an incredibly shitty thing happened on October 7 does not give the Israeli government any right to essentially instigate another holocaust. The old expression "Hurt people hurt people" seems relevant here.
You speak truth coherently through the haze of COVID and flu, what a CAT! I hope that there are so many echos of your ROAR that the RUMBLE never stops! FERAL FOREVER!
Best wishes and peace to you, Summer, and also: thank you for introducing me to Shalom Auslander's substack. He is hilarious. And laughter has been in short supply lately.
I love how you are sharing your truth here in such a raw way. Brave and courageous don’t feel like the right words. Your sharing feels so much deeper rawer than those expressions. It feels truly feral and I love it. I so deeply believe that we need more feralness and wildness in this world. Your sharing to me feels like it’s ripping off the bandage, which feels like a muzzle, and allows the deep wound underneath to get exposed so it has a chance to heal. Thank you so much for being YOU and I so hope that you are healing from the ordeal you mentioned 💗
Hamas' terror of October 7th requires counteraction to protect Israel.
But Benjamin Netanyahu commits grave war crimes in bombing hospitals, ambulances, food trucks, refugee camps, Orthodox Churches, Mosques, and inflicts massive deaths upon children, women, the old and other noncombatants.
War is subject to international law under Conventions of Hague/Geneva.
Warfare to decapitate a terrorist/genocidal Hamas organization is what is called for, and that warfare looks NOTHING LIKE what Israel is inflicting upon Gaza. To root out an embedded organization calls for a wearying, long mission to infiltrate and target terrorist groups.
General David Petraeus (Retired, U.S. Army) is one of our experts in counterinsurgency, and he calls this kind of mission, the "Graduate School" of warfare -- i.e., the most difficult and strenuous of missions.
It would have been nice if Netanyahu's Government had proper border security to minimize the fruits of the evil October 7th Attack. But not only was security lax, it was almost non-existent and villagers were tortured and killed awaiting in vain for rescue that came way too late.
Unambiguously: I am FOR Israel; against Hamas. We MUST abide by international law of warfare (Hague/Geneva) and NOT tolerate Netanyahu's war crimes in prosecuting the war in Gaza.
I think this statement agrees with you. We at least share core values in the matter.
Thank you for sharing from your expertise and journalism.
It not bee a warre in legal sense tho. As ye fact of Palestine as being a place of state is not recognized, thereby reducing ye armed factions in support of Palestinians to status of criminals. So laws of warrefarre (if such a thinge ever bee trueley honoured) Do not bee applying. As for that recognition of Palestine being as a state, that would then necessitate recognition also of ye hydrocarbons underground & undersea of that region as belonging to that state. Not a prize to bee carved up & portioned out to those merchant fascists who bee ye usual suspects when finger of blame requires pointing at culprits of dragging entire globe into hellish impasse. As ye wise always ask of all eventualities, who benefits?
Thomas Paine: I accept your point for Hamas and do agree that they are criminals, in that they are genocidal.
That is why I favor "decapitating" Hamas.
But thousands of women, children, food workers, medical and rescue personnel are not "armed factions" and are protected by the law of war irrespective of whether Gaza be recognized or not.
Under international law of war, Israel gets to "decapitate" the terrorist and genocidal Hamas criminals. But noncombatants are protected under the law.
It bee a crock of shite tho does it not? Rules of war? International laws? Conventions and treaties? All such seemeth to me to only bee invoked when it is to cast damnations label onto another. No nations seem to actually respect these laws and conventions. Israel most certainly not.
As for Hamas I don't seek argument wiv ye, and I'm all for seeking non-violent solutions to life's challenges. Yet I knowe & Ken full well that there shalle always bee resistance to oppression & persecution just as there will always bee resistance as meets force. So I condemn them not, for were I raised under such oppressiones & treated daily to such humiliations as these folk of Palestine have been then i would for truth have taken up armes agenst my oppressors many seasons past. As would you I reckon, or anyone as can say they love freedome and bee wantin' it secured for their progeny.
Thomas Paine: Please understand: I do NOT seek non-violent solutions with Hamas.
I favor unmitigated targeting -- be it from Mossad, be it from Special Operations -- to fully decapitate the terrorist, genocidal Hamas.
Armando's solution would be very violent and deadly towards genocidal terrorists.
And there may be collateral damage.
What international law will not brook is massive bombing of hospitals, refugee camps . . . killing thousands of children and women.
If Netanyahu had done his job: (1) Special operations on the border would have been long in place and would have aborted Hamas' vile October 7th operation, and we wouldn't be in this situation. Or, in the alternative, (2) Armed rescue would have happened in real time, mitigating harm to the local populace.
Hamas was able to wreak horror on a village all day, with no Israeli counterforce, on 7 October. Netanyahu failed in his primary duty of keeping his people safe.
Early in my life, I had the good fortune to be confronted with a young man from Kuwait, who informed me deeply of the hardships of Palestinians, not least, desirable professional leadership and major entrepreneurs, during the 1949 wars. Through him, I learned of the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916. Through him, I read much history with admiration of Islamic Spain and North Africa with a highly enlightened, religiously tolerant culture.
Science, medicine, philosophy and the arts had blossomed under the open and tolerant world of Islamic Spain and Northern Africa.
I can go on for literally for hours for a whole small library that I owe to my college-sophomore friendship with this young man from Kuwait.
As I am now 76, I have benefited from this learning for 56 years.
You raise excellent points, because Netanyahu has actively encouraged hostile "settlements" in Palestinian areas.
Personally, after the Holocaust I would welcome the entire world of Jews in America. We have great swaths of land and my heart breaks at what occurred in WWII.
My Mom is (God rest her soul) Walloon (i.e., French-speaking) Belgian, who suffered under the WWII occupation of the Third Reich, and I know deeply personally what her (our) family went through in Charleroi.
After WWII, Jewish suffering was not over.
Jews returning home in Poland, for example, were massively killed by the local populace.
Safety for Jewish people post WWII was absolutely essential.
On the other hand, people like Menachim Begin committed horrendous war crimes, killing whole villages.
The whole situation is a matter of anguish.
Was the foundation of Israel the right answer?
As lively a question as that may have been in 1949 (I was a little one then), the matter is academic now.
As a retired Air Force judge advocate who TAUGHT flyers the "Law of War", I (who do NOT here speak for the Air Force!) say:
(1) Israel has a right to decapitate Hamas as deadly, genocidal combatants;
(2) Israel has made a mockery, a real mockery of the "Law of War" and world leaders by massively bombing children, women, non-combatants, sanctuaries (refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, Orthodox Churches, Mosques, FOOD TRUCKS). THESE ARE TERRIBLE CRIMES.
As with Menachim Begin in 1949, we have massively lost innocent life of children, women and adult NONCOMBATANTS.
These persons have nothing to do with the Hamas terror against Israel.
Killing innocents does NOT help the war against genocidal terrorists and is an unconscionable crime.
If I can find stronger terms to denounce massive murder of thousands of children, women and other NONCOMBATANTS, short of obscenities and vulgarities, I will not shy from employment of these terms.
We cannot undo 1949. As a result of the Holocaust and postwar pogroms (I was five years old when Stalin died -- Stalin, in his last months, planned pogroms!), Israel exists de jure and should exist within strategically defensible borders.
I studied the 1967 seven-day war for Air War College. Israel conducted that warfare quite skillfully.
Benjamin Netanyahu is NOT CAPABLE of the operational-strategy Israel deployed in 1967. Netanyahu has spent years in tormenting Palestinians and now in unconscionable war crimes.
I hath been thinkynge long abowt your words here. I don't agree that by some "decapitation strike" an ending of this conflict would bee secured. For although it may reduce Hamas as an effective organization for a while but in end it would doe no Goode thinge in terms of bringing to an end any armed resistance to oppressionnes of the Israeli state. I agree though with thee about this netandyahoo man whoso hath made conditions soe terrible as to make peaceful resolution an impossibilitie. But peaceful resolutions we must seek. I feel it is a moral imperative to doe soe. We're it not for this genocidal madness of now then a solution could have been organized if nationes were willing to cooperate in bringing development into ye region by collaboration betwixt east & west. Ye potential for water rmanagement for whole region that cud then also bee a source of hydro-electric energies for ye peepul of whole region exists. But ye failing now is fated to bee generational, for in truthe none alive today whose eyes bee open &hearts awake to ye horror of whate is being done to these people, bee we Arab, jew, Christian or professors of no religion, shalle not bee forgetting any when soon. This situation is intolerable, & for my owne self I say i cannot longer endure a parliament of sycophants, cowards & cynical business suits whoso claimeth to bee representing me! Yet are directly in support of, & bee engaged in lethal business with, those as are doing ye most horrendous harms for sake of their owne monopolies & shares in suche.
If a "decapitation strike" is in truthe ye rightful answer to this madness then I feel it should bee done upon this netandyahoo man, with at same time a similar strike to take out all ye royals of UK, who in truthe are more to blame than most & whose role in Britain's politik should have been ended once for all, in 1649.
A strike on all these heads of state, all at once. Kill off all ye psychopaths in one goe!
Ahh but I see a problem. For my dislike of these I am inclined to calleth "nazi" types is in that they presume ye right to decide whoso that liveth deserves death. They identify "untermensch" & "ubermensch" & place value on ye latter as they pour contempt on ye former, valuing some lives but not others.
Yet here I bee contemplating their owne deserving of suche treatment!
It bee what I am inclined to call an ethical paradox.
But for sure, if we are too solve ye situation through assaination then I have a growing list of names.
But I am not for killing folk.
Any folk.
But my "broken jaw" list is getting longer day by day I canst deny, & in truthe, if fate or fortune should place me in arms reach of any of these as I have identified as culprits of this madness, then they shalle recieve broken jaw, just before I am shot.
Thomas Paine: You have good reason, and any disagreement is likely to be a matter of limitation of space for me to further explain my own position.
You have sound, humane values, and you really, strongly hit upon the key point of human survival in the Middle East: access to water.
As long as forty years ago, as an Air Force officer, I was reading deeply of Middle Eastern crises, and you locate properly water as being crucial.
The Middle East is so embroiled with mutual hatred and aggressions as to be all but intractable.
Bashar al Assad inflicts horror on his own Syrian people.
Although Saddam Hussein was a monster-dictator, he was a buffer against the ayatollahs in Iran.
In Iraq -- a union of highly diverse cultures (Kurds, and Sunni and Shia peoples) -- border areas are populated by peoples who are religiously and culturally close to Iran, which considerable strengthens Iran's regional power.
You and I are horrified at Netanyahu's aggressive, hostile settlements to drive out Palestinians.
Which leads me to 1949 (when Menachim Begin had butchered Palestinian villages) and 1916 (Sykes-Picot Treaty). The problem accelerated in Europe, with Stalin's pogrom and monstrously with Hitler's "Endlösung" (Final Solution).
October 7th wrought regional terror in good ´part through Israel's inattention to the Hamas-based dangers on their border. Hamas-Terrorist had free-rein on October 7th with virtually no Israeli resistance until the local populace had been violated and terrorized.
Again: Israel's right to defend itself is limited to destruction of Hamas' power.
Children, women, noncombatants are sacred and must be protected. Note this: It doesn't matter one whit what these noncombatants believe. Bitter conditions may convince them that Hamas is right. These are still noncombatants and their lives are sacred.
Because of the Shoah -- the Holocaust -- and pogroms going back at least a millennium -- Jews clearly need a safe haven. I love Jewish culture so much, I would be willing and happy to accept all Jews of the world in America, for that matter.
But the West has ignored that Palestine had existed for at least a millennium. What gives us the right to redress one grievance through the driving out of a people.
Professionals and academes and entrepreneurs were driven out and Palestinian economies destroyed.
You and I are in this discussion, because Israel has committed the horrendous crime -- war-crime -- of bombing children, women, noncombatants, and sanctuaries (hospitals, ambulances, refugee camps, food trucks, Orthodox Churches, mosques . . .).
Israel has managed to alienate ME in this war, and I am their natural ALLY.
What I do allow -- as I am convinced is proper under international law of war -- is to have special-operations, surgically targeted neutralization (alright: "KILLING") to eliminate a genocidal, armed terrorist group.
If you disagree, you may be quite reasonable, because reasonable diligence would have prevented the October 7th attack.
But the history of persecution of Jews and the 76-year-history of Israel show, in my strongly-held belief, Israel: (1) Has a right to exist; (2) Has a right to strategically defensible borders; (3) Has a right to protect itself.
As I read your responses, you have good, humane values and you reason in a way I find compelling.
I answer to the extent of my own abilities, with the assurance, you and I share core values.
Thank you for speaking up! 🕊️ We all need to challenge these ideas that criticism of a State is equivalent to Anti-Semitism (no state has total impunity and labeling criticism as anti-semitism is dismissive and a harmful erosion of what that word means in the long-run) and to end this retribution war spiral of collective punishment. 🙏
I worry for our world! I worry that the "few" have elevated themselves to attain the power of so many while listening to so little of what the many have to say. When the value of humanity has been reduced to sub-zero in the name of power, the demise of civilization as we know it has passed its tipping point. Yet, what shines brightest during these darkest hours is a hope for that same civilization to come together collectively, one voice at a time as you have done here, Summer. Love, kindness, and empathy for all of humanity can never be silenced. 🙏🏻
(sounds of Paul Simon...C'mon take me to the tardegrad 🎶💙😚🎶)
All respect to the poor Palestinians...and my apologies to them on behalf of ALL the other humans, who wish them no harm, only love & peace. 🙏🏻🧘🏻♀️🌌💙🫂
I cannot be for any of the warring groups, which btw includes US CIA, and other globalist interests. The despicable warring powers are in this for money, land, resources and human trafficking. When there is war, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. I pray for the non-combatant
people of Israel and Palestine. And Summer, I pray for your quick return to health. I too am suffering the BLOODY FLU!
I hope you get better from the flus, if I had a wee Shopvac, I would send it to you to suck out the snots AND the tummy soreness, AND the flu virus.
The 30,000 people that Israel killed in Gaza, just created 30,000 more Hamas fighters from their living survivors. This is not going to end well for Bibi, and he really needs to resign and GTFO out of politics.
I'm very afraid for the hostages though, terrorists do have a lot of patience sometimes, but only for their modus operandi. I don't think they even thought ahead this far, that they would have them this long.
There's so much suffering between the people in Gaza, the people that had October 7th happen to them, and the hostages. Both sides need to come to a ceasefire and get over the current impasse.
Thank you, Squizz. And yes, I agree. My thoughts are with those poor hostages always, and their families, as with the people of Gaza. So heartbreaking.
Thank you! You are speaking common sense and heart! I too feel the cries of the oppressed people who are trapped in Gaza. The more I learn about their history, the more I see their oppression has been ongoing for decades if not centuries.
Mannn, I feel like sticking my fist in the air and shouting “Right On!”
(NOT sarcastic,)
ASAP I am going to screenshot your article and repost it to my Instagram Story ( @bill_realman_stella ); maybe even make it into a Reel, like the app compatriots me to do. ) (have you a song suggestion for a music bed?)
Maybe, because I’ve got so many things to attend to, I’m not so obsessed about the issues you touch on that I’ve heard what you’ve said on repeat, (and after >25 years of internet communicating I’m less confident than ever that the effort I’d need to state things well is worth the meager results I tend to get) but you’ve stated things better than I’ve seen before.
So my fallback is sharing the better-stated points others say.
Your opinion not only matters, it’s essential. Thank you for all of this
Thanks so much, Sarina!
Nah... I don't think it's the meds talking... Maybe the meds have allowed the no fucks left to give part of you to step into the foreground but what you wrote makes perfect sense and is completely reasonable in my almost 63 year old opinion. I am disgusted every time I read the news. I'm appalled at our sanctioning of genocide by continuing to deliver war-making materials to Israel. Just because an incredibly shitty thing happened on October 7 does not give the Israeli government any right to essentially instigate another holocaust. The old expression "Hurt people hurt people" seems relevant here.
I 100 million percent YES to everything you said!
You speak truth coherently through the haze of COVID and flu, what a CAT! I hope that there are so many echos of your ROAR that the RUMBLE never stops! FERAL FOREVER!
Haha! Meowwwwww!!!!
And thank you :-)
Best wishes and peace to you, Summer, and also: thank you for introducing me to Shalom Auslander's substack. He is hilarious. And laughter has been in short supply lately.
Thank you, Andromeda! Yeah, isn't he awesome?! Balm for these times. Like my new Jon Stewart.
I recommend his book, Foreskin’s Lament. Also he was on This American Life, I think, with other comedic work that I imagine would be in the archives!
I bought his memoir foreskins lament. It is hilarious!
Yay! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. It brought me a lot of joy ten-ish years ago
I love how you are sharing your truth here in such a raw way. Brave and courageous don’t feel like the right words. Your sharing feels so much deeper rawer than those expressions. It feels truly feral and I love it. I so deeply believe that we need more feralness and wildness in this world. Your sharing to me feels like it’s ripping off the bandage, which feels like a muzzle, and allows the deep wound underneath to get exposed so it has a chance to heal. Thank you so much for being YOU and I so hope that you are healing from the ordeal you mentioned 💗
I love reading this. Thank you so much! Saving what you wrote. I'm glad it's helping with some catharsis! <3 <3 <3
Summer Koester: Of course, what you say is true.
Hamas' terror of October 7th requires counteraction to protect Israel.
But Benjamin Netanyahu commits grave war crimes in bombing hospitals, ambulances, food trucks, refugee camps, Orthodox Churches, Mosques, and inflicts massive deaths upon children, women, the old and other noncombatants.
War is subject to international law under Conventions of Hague/Geneva.
Warfare to decapitate a terrorist/genocidal Hamas organization is what is called for, and that warfare looks NOTHING LIKE what Israel is inflicting upon Gaza. To root out an embedded organization calls for a wearying, long mission to infiltrate and target terrorist groups.
General David Petraeus (Retired, U.S. Army) is one of our experts in counterinsurgency, and he calls this kind of mission, the "Graduate School" of warfare -- i.e., the most difficult and strenuous of missions.
It would have been nice if Netanyahu's Government had proper border security to minimize the fruits of the evil October 7th Attack. But not only was security lax, it was almost non-existent and villagers were tortured and killed awaiting in vain for rescue that came way too late.
Unambiguously: I am FOR Israel; against Hamas. We MUST abide by international law of warfare (Hague/Geneva) and NOT tolerate Netanyahu's war crimes in prosecuting the war in Gaza.
I think this statement agrees with you. We at least share core values in the matter.
Thank you for sharing from your expertise and journalism.
Yes everything you say! Thank you for articulating this! 🔥
Summer Koester: You share so much in your writings her on this Substack platform and elsewhere where I follow your writings with interest.
Thank you so much for sharing of yourself and your research.
Thank you so much, Armand <3
It not bee a warre in legal sense tho. As ye fact of Palestine as being a place of state is not recognized, thereby reducing ye armed factions in support of Palestinians to status of criminals. So laws of warrefarre (if such a thinge ever bee trueley honoured) Do not bee applying. As for that recognition of Palestine being as a state, that would then necessitate recognition also of ye hydrocarbons underground & undersea of that region as belonging to that state. Not a prize to bee carved up & portioned out to those merchant fascists who bee ye usual suspects when finger of blame requires pointing at culprits of dragging entire globe into hellish impasse. As ye wise always ask of all eventualities, who benefits?
Thomas Paine: I accept your point for Hamas and do agree that they are criminals, in that they are genocidal.
That is why I favor "decapitating" Hamas.
But thousands of women, children, food workers, medical and rescue personnel are not "armed factions" and are protected by the law of war irrespective of whether Gaza be recognized or not.
Under international law of war, Israel gets to "decapitate" the terrorist and genocidal Hamas criminals. But noncombatants are protected under the law.
It bee a crock of shite tho does it not? Rules of war? International laws? Conventions and treaties? All such seemeth to me to only bee invoked when it is to cast damnations label onto another. No nations seem to actually respect these laws and conventions. Israel most certainly not.
As for Hamas I don't seek argument wiv ye, and I'm all for seeking non-violent solutions to life's challenges. Yet I knowe & Ken full well that there shalle always bee resistance to oppression & persecution just as there will always bee resistance as meets force. So I condemn them not, for were I raised under such oppressiones & treated daily to such humiliations as these folk of Palestine have been then i would for truth have taken up armes agenst my oppressors many seasons past. As would you I reckon, or anyone as can say they love freedome and bee wantin' it secured for their progeny.
Thomas Paine: Please understand: I do NOT seek non-violent solutions with Hamas.
I favor unmitigated targeting -- be it from Mossad, be it from Special Operations -- to fully decapitate the terrorist, genocidal Hamas.
Armando's solution would be very violent and deadly towards genocidal terrorists.
And there may be collateral damage.
What international law will not brook is massive bombing of hospitals, refugee camps . . . killing thousands of children and women.
If Netanyahu had done his job: (1) Special operations on the border would have been long in place and would have aborted Hamas' vile October 7th operation, and we wouldn't be in this situation. Or, in the alternative, (2) Armed rescue would have happened in real time, mitigating harm to the local populace.
Hamas was able to wreak horror on a village all day, with no Israeli counterforce, on 7 October. Netanyahu failed in his primary duty of keeping his people safe.
Early in my life, I had the good fortune to be confronted with a young man from Kuwait, who informed me deeply of the hardships of Palestinians, not least, desirable professional leadership and major entrepreneurs, during the 1949 wars. Through him, I learned of the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916. Through him, I read much history with admiration of Islamic Spain and North Africa with a highly enlightened, religiously tolerant culture.
Science, medicine, philosophy and the arts had blossomed under the open and tolerant world of Islamic Spain and Northern Africa.
I can go on for literally for hours for a whole small library that I owe to my college-sophomore friendship with this young man from Kuwait.
As I am now 76, I have benefited from this learning for 56 years.
You raise excellent points, because Netanyahu has actively encouraged hostile "settlements" in Palestinian areas.
Personally, after the Holocaust I would welcome the entire world of Jews in America. We have great swaths of land and my heart breaks at what occurred in WWII.
My Mom is (God rest her soul) Walloon (i.e., French-speaking) Belgian, who suffered under the WWII occupation of the Third Reich, and I know deeply personally what her (our) family went through in Charleroi.
After WWII, Jewish suffering was not over.
Jews returning home in Poland, for example, were massively killed by the local populace.
Safety for Jewish people post WWII was absolutely essential.
On the other hand, people like Menachim Begin committed horrendous war crimes, killing whole villages.
The whole situation is a matter of anguish.
Was the foundation of Israel the right answer?
As lively a question as that may have been in 1949 (I was a little one then), the matter is academic now.
As a retired Air Force judge advocate who TAUGHT flyers the "Law of War", I (who do NOT here speak for the Air Force!) say:
(1) Israel has a right to decapitate Hamas as deadly, genocidal combatants;
(2) Israel has made a mockery, a real mockery of the "Law of War" and world leaders by massively bombing children, women, non-combatants, sanctuaries (refugee camps, hospitals, ambulances, Orthodox Churches, Mosques, FOOD TRUCKS). THESE ARE TERRIBLE CRIMES.
As with Menachim Begin in 1949, we have massively lost innocent life of children, women and adult NONCOMBATANTS.
These persons have nothing to do with the Hamas terror against Israel.
Killing innocents does NOT help the war against genocidal terrorists and is an unconscionable crime.
If I can find stronger terms to denounce massive murder of thousands of children, women and other NONCOMBATANTS, short of obscenities and vulgarities, I will not shy from employment of these terms.
We cannot undo 1949. As a result of the Holocaust and postwar pogroms (I was five years old when Stalin died -- Stalin, in his last months, planned pogroms!), Israel exists de jure and should exist within strategically defensible borders.
I studied the 1967 seven-day war for Air War College. Israel conducted that warfare quite skillfully.
Benjamin Netanyahu is NOT CAPABLE of the operational-strategy Israel deployed in 1967. Netanyahu has spent years in tormenting Palestinians and now in unconscionable war crimes.
That is NOT WHY Israel was created post-War!
I thank thee for thy detailed commentary whiche I shall indeed bee reading twice & a third time.
I look forward to reading most attentively whatever bee written on thyne substack also.
I hath been thinkynge long abowt your words here. I don't agree that by some "decapitation strike" an ending of this conflict would bee secured. For although it may reduce Hamas as an effective organization for a while but in end it would doe no Goode thinge in terms of bringing to an end any armed resistance to oppressionnes of the Israeli state. I agree though with thee about this netandyahoo man whoso hath made conditions soe terrible as to make peaceful resolution an impossibilitie. But peaceful resolutions we must seek. I feel it is a moral imperative to doe soe. We're it not for this genocidal madness of now then a solution could have been organized if nationes were willing to cooperate in bringing development into ye region by collaboration betwixt east & west. Ye potential for water rmanagement for whole region that cud then also bee a source of hydro-electric energies for ye peepul of whole region exists. But ye failing now is fated to bee generational, for in truthe none alive today whose eyes bee open &hearts awake to ye horror of whate is being done to these people, bee we Arab, jew, Christian or professors of no religion, shalle not bee forgetting any when soon. This situation is intolerable, & for my owne self I say i cannot longer endure a parliament of sycophants, cowards & cynical business suits whoso claimeth to bee representing me! Yet are directly in support of, & bee engaged in lethal business with, those as are doing ye most horrendous harms for sake of their owne monopolies & shares in suche.
If a "decapitation strike" is in truthe ye rightful answer to this madness then I feel it should bee done upon this netandyahoo man, with at same time a similar strike to take out all ye royals of UK, who in truthe are more to blame than most & whose role in Britain's politik should have been ended once for all, in 1649.
A strike on all these heads of state, all at once. Kill off all ye psychopaths in one goe!
Ahh but I see a problem. For my dislike of these I am inclined to calleth "nazi" types is in that they presume ye right to decide whoso that liveth deserves death. They identify "untermensch" & "ubermensch" & place value on ye latter as they pour contempt on ye former, valuing some lives but not others.
Yet here I bee contemplating their owne deserving of suche treatment!
It bee what I am inclined to call an ethical paradox.
But for sure, if we are too solve ye situation through assaination then I have a growing list of names.
But I am not for killing folk.
Any folk.
But my "broken jaw" list is getting longer day by day I canst deny, & in truthe, if fate or fortune should place me in arms reach of any of these as I have identified as culprits of this madness, then they shalle recieve broken jaw, just before I am shot.
Thomas Paine: You have good reason, and any disagreement is likely to be a matter of limitation of space for me to further explain my own position.
You have sound, humane values, and you really, strongly hit upon the key point of human survival in the Middle East: access to water.
As long as forty years ago, as an Air Force officer, I was reading deeply of Middle Eastern crises, and you locate properly water as being crucial.
The Middle East is so embroiled with mutual hatred and aggressions as to be all but intractable.
Bashar al Assad inflicts horror on his own Syrian people.
Although Saddam Hussein was a monster-dictator, he was a buffer against the ayatollahs in Iran.
In Iraq -- a union of highly diverse cultures (Kurds, and Sunni and Shia peoples) -- border areas are populated by peoples who are religiously and culturally close to Iran, which considerable strengthens Iran's regional power.
You and I are horrified at Netanyahu's aggressive, hostile settlements to drive out Palestinians.
Which leads me to 1949 (when Menachim Begin had butchered Palestinian villages) and 1916 (Sykes-Picot Treaty). The problem accelerated in Europe, with Stalin's pogrom and monstrously with Hitler's "Endlösung" (Final Solution).
October 7th wrought regional terror in good ´part through Israel's inattention to the Hamas-based dangers on their border. Hamas-Terrorist had free-rein on October 7th with virtually no Israeli resistance until the local populace had been violated and terrorized.
Again: Israel's right to defend itself is limited to destruction of Hamas' power.
Children, women, noncombatants are sacred and must be protected. Note this: It doesn't matter one whit what these noncombatants believe. Bitter conditions may convince them that Hamas is right. These are still noncombatants and their lives are sacred.
Because of the Shoah -- the Holocaust -- and pogroms going back at least a millennium -- Jews clearly need a safe haven. I love Jewish culture so much, I would be willing and happy to accept all Jews of the world in America, for that matter.
But the West has ignored that Palestine had existed for at least a millennium. What gives us the right to redress one grievance through the driving out of a people.
Professionals and academes and entrepreneurs were driven out and Palestinian economies destroyed.
You and I are in this discussion, because Israel has committed the horrendous crime -- war-crime -- of bombing children, women, noncombatants, and sanctuaries (hospitals, ambulances, refugee camps, food trucks, Orthodox Churches, mosques . . .).
Israel has managed to alienate ME in this war, and I am their natural ALLY.
What I do allow -- as I am convinced is proper under international law of war -- is to have special-operations, surgically targeted neutralization (alright: "KILLING") to eliminate a genocidal, armed terrorist group.
If you disagree, you may be quite reasonable, because reasonable diligence would have prevented the October 7th attack.
But the history of persecution of Jews and the 76-year-history of Israel show, in my strongly-held belief, Israel: (1) Has a right to exist; (2) Has a right to strategically defensible borders; (3) Has a right to protect itself.
As I read your responses, you have good, humane values and you reason in a way I find compelling.
I answer to the extent of my own abilities, with the assurance, you and I share core values.
Thank you for speaking up! 🕊️ We all need to challenge these ideas that criticism of a State is equivalent to Anti-Semitism (no state has total impunity and labeling criticism as anti-semitism is dismissive and a harmful erosion of what that word means in the long-run) and to end this retribution war spiral of collective punishment. 🙏
Yes! Thank you for saying that!
I worry for our world! I worry that the "few" have elevated themselves to attain the power of so many while listening to so little of what the many have to say. When the value of humanity has been reduced to sub-zero in the name of power, the demise of civilization as we know it has passed its tipping point. Yet, what shines brightest during these darkest hours is a hope for that same civilization to come together collectively, one voice at a time as you have done here, Summer. Love, kindness, and empathy for all of humanity can never be silenced. 🙏🏻
Yes ✨ ✨ thank you!!!! 💗
Gorgeous Critter - the tardegrad...thank you...
(sounds of Paul Simon...C'mon take me to the tardegrad 🎶💙😚🎶)
All respect to the poor Palestinians...and my apologies to them on behalf of ALL the other humans, who wish them no harm, only love & peace. 🙏🏻🧘🏻♀️🌌💙🫂
Yes!!!! Thank you, Mahesh 💕
Thank you for your critique. Keep on writing!
🌻🌻🌻
Thank you Nancy! 😘
I cannot be for any of the warring groups, which btw includes US CIA, and other globalist interests. The despicable warring powers are in this for money, land, resources and human trafficking. When there is war, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. I pray for the non-combatant
people of Israel and Palestine. And Summer, I pray for your quick return to health. I too am suffering the BLOODY FLU!
What?! Nooooooo!!!! Get well!
Also, this picture of a degu cuddle pile is the best. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Degu_cuddle_pile.jpg)
It's at a zoo in Wales, where they have a huge degu colony :)
That is so snuggly!
When I had a colony of six female degus, I would sneak the degu at the very bottom of the cuddle pile into my hands to warm them in the winter.
Ahahahha i love that!
I hope you get better from the flus, if I had a wee Shopvac, I would send it to you to suck out the snots AND the tummy soreness, AND the flu virus.
The 30,000 people that Israel killed in Gaza, just created 30,000 more Hamas fighters from their living survivors. This is not going to end well for Bibi, and he really needs to resign and GTFO out of politics.
I'm very afraid for the hostages though, terrorists do have a lot of patience sometimes, but only for their modus operandi. I don't think they even thought ahead this far, that they would have them this long.
There's so much suffering between the people in Gaza, the people that had October 7th happen to them, and the hostages. Both sides need to come to a ceasefire and get over the current impasse.
Thank you, Squizz. And yes, I agree. My thoughts are with those poor hostages always, and their families, as with the people of Gaza. So heartbreaking.
Thank you! You are speaking common sense and heart! I too feel the cries of the oppressed people who are trapped in Gaza. The more I learn about their history, the more I see their oppression has been ongoing for decades if not centuries.
So true. Thanks Linda ❤️
Mannn, I feel like sticking my fist in the air and shouting “Right On!”
(NOT sarcastic,)
ASAP I am going to screenshot your article and repost it to my Instagram Story ( @bill_realman_stella ); maybe even make it into a Reel, like the app compatriots me to do. ) (have you a song suggestion for a music bed?)
Maybe, because I’ve got so many things to attend to, I’m not so obsessed about the issues you touch on that I’ve heard what you’ve said on repeat, (and after >25 years of internet communicating I’m less confident than ever that the effort I’d need to state things well is worth the meager results I tend to get) but you’ve stated things better than I’ve seen before.
So my fallback is sharing the better-stated points others say.
Thanks so much, Bill 💗
It’s both in my Story for however much longer, and as a “Reel”, here
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6unV6Wtpwl/?igsh=enV3Mzg5NTBvbms3
Awesome! I followed u!
LOVE YOU!!! Here's to honesty, kindness, clarity, care for the broken and savaged. And NO MORE COOTIES FER YOOOOO!!!
NO MORE COOTIES AMEN! Thank you, John!